Rashid, Miandad report to match referee about umpiring at Lord’s
KARACHI: The Pakistan team management awarded umpires Peter Willey and Daryl Hair a “below average performance” ranking after the final One-day International against England at Lord’s on Sunday.
‘The News’ has learnt that captain Rashid Latif and coach Javed Miandad in their post match report submitted to the match-referee rated the performance of the two umpires at Lord’s as below average, which is considered a poor ranking.
A Pakistan Cricket Board source said that neither the Pakistan team nor the officials of the Pakistan board who watched the match at Lord’s were happy with some of the umpiring decisions, specially those given by former England player Peter Willey.
“The PCB Chairman Lt. General Tauqir Zia watched the match with the new ICC President Ehsan Mani and the performance of the two umpires was watched very closely,” the source said.
According to him, the Pakistan board Chairman had conveyed verbally to Ehsan Mani that Pakistan would be taking up the issue of the declining standard of international umpires and the dominance of umpires from the white countries on the ICC panels very strongly at the next meeting of the ICC.
“Pakistan plans to submit a paper on the umpiring issue and will press the ICC executive board members to take this issue seriously since one or two poor umpiring decisions have a big impact on the teams’ fortunes,” the source stated.
The two umpires, Willey and Hair were involved in atleast three controversial decisions which went against Pakistan and this didn’t go unnoticed by even the commentators on television including the PCB CEO Rameez Raja.
Ironically, Peter Willey, a former England player and the Pakistan coach Javed Miandad never got along during their playing days or when they came across each other in the English County Championship.